OnTrack: The PCB Design Podcast

Today we talk to Yizhak Bot who started his career in the Israeli DOD, and today he will share with us what derating is and how you can work on the schematic level with their simulation software to eliminate field failures. With a background including about ten years working with the reliability of very big systems gaining much insight into how systems work and fail, Yizhak is an expert you’ll want to listen in and learn from. Today he is the founder and CTO of BQR Reliable Engineering.

Show Highlights:

• Yizhak was a sponsor at both previous AltiumLive conferences and at the most recent, he spoke about the technology that BQR offers to engineers who lay out boards.
• A few common design errors that lead to field failures are: 1. Sudden CPU reboots, for example in aircraft - imagine an in-flight computer failure. 2. With safety- and non-safety functions together on one board, the non-safety functions will affect the safety functions - they need to be separated. 3. If you have a DC to DC converter - you’ll want to test if the voltage is correct and remember to connect them to the same ground, in the field it can be difficult to establish where the problem originates.
• What is derating as discussed at AltiumLive? You cannot use any component, current, or junction temperature running at its maximum rating; you must derate it.
• Integration, quality and field tests cannot find all failures that may occur because you cannot test all the combinations; using the simulation tool ensures your design is robust.
• Tell us about Fixstress and what inspired you to develop it? We wanted to find something to check for issues before products are in the field. We developed a tool that calculates stress levels of components, and a schematic review which detects design errors.
• Additionally, the simulation can do a thermal analysis and MTBF prediction to complete the analysis for the designer.
• What is the impact on your customers when using Fixstress? Almost zero failures in the field leading to the longevity of products.
• What kind of applications do you address and in which geographic regions? Mostly in big systems such as aerospace, also trains, automotive, shipping, telecoms, gas and oil, server farms, wind farms, power distribution. Our geographic market reach currently is the USA, Canada, Brazil, Europe, UK, Sweden and the Netherlands as well as China, Singapore, Japan and starting to work in Korea.
• Most of our growth is due to mouth-to-mouth referrals and clients asking sub-contractors to use the technology.  

Links and Resources:

BQR Reliable Engineering